


Must Be a Different View

by thesaddestboner



Series: Author's Favorites [8]
Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: Detroit Tigers, Gen, M/M, Male Friendship, Unrequited Love, mention of family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-14 03:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesaddestboner/pseuds/thesaddestboner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>This is going to be his best season yet.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Must Be a Different View

**Author's Note:**

> Written for challenge #2 at [](http://rpflashfic.livejournal.com/profile)[**rpflashfic**](http://rpflashfic.livejournal.com/), which is “separation,” but it’s too long for the challenge so, fuck it. Also written in response to one of [**deviliknow**](http://deviliknow.livejournal.com/)’s X-mas Fic Request prompts, which was _Phil Coke/Max Scherzer, Welcome to Detroit. Words: nerves/nervous, cold, new_. IDK about the Coke voice in this one. It’s kind of . . . quirky? And probably not at all like RL Phil Coke. 
> 
> Thanks to [**holdeverysong**](http://holdeverysong.livejournal.com/) and [**learnthemusic**](http://learnthemusic.livejournal.com/) for looking this over. I futzed with it a little more after they looked at it, so any remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title from “Inside of Love,” by Nada Surf. I’m also pretty sure RL Phil Coke has no idea who Nada Surf is.
> 
> You can find me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/thesaddestboner) and [tumblr](http://saddestboner.tumblr.com).

He’s never been traded before.

He’s kind of in this funny state of limbo: he feels like he should be butthurt that the Yankees didn’t want him and, at the same time, be happy and grateful that the Tigers _did_.

When he finds out that he’s for sure going to Detroit, he calls up his agent and asks him to get Max Scherzer’s number for him. Scherzer is his new teammate, and it couldn’t hurt to reach out, try to get on the same page or whatever, make a new friend. Maybe Jackson should be the one to do this, he doesn’t know. But he’s always been a take-charge kind of guy. And this is him taking charge.

“Hi, Max,” he says, when Scherzer answers after three rings.

“Who is this?” Scherzer asks, sounding grumbly and disoriented, like Phil had awoken him after a long hibernation or something.

“Phil Coke. Your new teammate,” he says. “I was just calling to introduce myself.”

“Oh,” Scherzer says, the fog clearing up a bit from his voice. “Thanks for calling, ’s nice of you. Phone’s been ringing off the hook for the last, what, hour or so. ’s been kind of crazy.”

Oh. A couple hometown reporters had called for Phil, asking him how it felt to go from the _World Champion New York Yankees_ to _Detroit_ (the name of the place said like it was a bad taste), and a couple had called from New York to get his thoughts about leaving the Yankees, the team that had drafted him and raised him up, but that was it. The media had remained mostly unconcerned with Phil. It was all about Jackson-- Austin _and_ Edwin-- and Granderson and Scherzer and even Daniel Schlereth, who’s another left-handed reliever but throws harder than Phil does and has a famous dad.

“Hey,” Scherzer says, loudly, bursting through his thoughts and scattering them. “You still there?”

“Sorry. Wandered off for a second,” Phil says.

“ ’s okay. Can’t blame you,” Scherzer says.

He sounds nice, like a nice guy. He sounds like somebody who would be a good friend, and Phil immediately wants to like him.

“Yeah,” he says, idling, losing the threads of the conversation. “I-- I’ve never been traded before. Have you?”

“Nah,” Scherzer says. “It’s kind of a weird thing, being passed from one team to the other like chattel. I never really thought much about it before, but it’s weird. Don’t you think?”

Phil’s head swims. _Chattel?_ “Yeah, you’re right,” he agrees, even though he doesn’t really know what he’s agreeing with. “It’s crazy.”

“Crazy,” Scherzer echoes. “You’ll get used to it. There’s no such thing as loyalty in baseball anymore.”

“That’s a reassuring thought,” Phil says.

“Yeah,” Scherzer laughs, “I know, right? Look, I gotta go. Am I gonna see you in Detroit for TigerFest?”

Phil shrugs pointlessly at his TV. “Yeah, I guess. If they invite me up.”

“They will,” Scherzer says. “See ya around, Phil.”

“Bye, Max.”

Phil hangs up.

-

Detroit in January is even worse than he’d expected.

Phil’s agent insists on giving him a short tour around the city, complete with a tour guide-y explanation of all the burnt out shells of buildings and all the homeless people lurking in entrances and doorways.

It kind of looks like a bomb hit forty years ago and the city never quite recovered.

“Technically it did,” his agent says as he steers them into the team’s gray, skyscraperesque parking structure. His agent flashes his credentials to a bored looking attendant in an orange and navy jacket, and the man waves them through.

“ ’s too bad,” Phil says, shaking his head and unstrapping his seat belt. “They really think people’ll come out to see us play this year? With the way the economy’s going?”

“People always come out,” his agent promises, sliding his car into a spot. He kills the engine and turns to give Phil a serious look. “Especially in a place like Detroit, where all they’ve got going for them are their sports teams.”

“No pressure or anything,” Phil grouses mildly, stepping out and slamming the door. Powdery snow curls up in tendrils and caresses his cold cheeks.

“No pressure,” his agent repeats, cheerily.

-

It’s marginally warmer inside Comerica Park. This year they finally wised up and put up large, chugging heat generators, one of the ushers gripes as she leads Phil to the area where he’ll be signing autographs.

“You’ll be signing here. After about an hour and a half, we’ll send up three of your teammates to relieve you guys,” the woman says, pushing several Sharpie markers in varying sizes at him. “Following your break, you’ll be moved to another location.”

Phil wraps cold, stiff fingers around the Sharpie markers. “ ’m I the only one of my group who’s here?”

“Yeah,” the woman, whose name tag says **TERRY B.** , says. “Traffic’s bad. You’re supposed to be signing with-- ” She scans a clipboard. “Max Scherzer and Bobby Seay. Last I heard, both of them were stuck in a traffic jam on Woodward, but they should be here in time for when the gates open.”

Phil takes a seat and lays out the Sharpie markers in front of him. Ushers in big, padded orange and navy jackets flit by like busy worker bees. He can almost hear the buzz, or maybe that’s the heat generators. Or maybe it’s the butterflies in Phil’s stomach, but, then again, he doesn’t think butterflies buzz anyways. So, whatever.

Phil arranges and rearranges the Sharpies and shuffles through the stacks of things-- glossy 3x5 cards, mostly, depicting a team he wasn’t even a part of yet-- he’s going to sign. Most of the fans will bring their own items for him to sign, Terry B. tells him. The glossy cards are there just in case.

Phil starts to build a fort out of the Sharpies and stacks of cards when he’s hit in the face with a frigid gust of air. He looks up to see Scherzer and Seay, stomping snow off their rubber-soled boots and shaking it out of their woolen caps. Terry B. pulls the plastic flap of their autograph area back in place, and the cold air is thankfully gone.

“Hey, Max. It’s me, Phil,” he says, getting up and heading over to introduce himself. “We talked earlier.”

“Oh, hi,” Scherzer says, grabbing Phil’s hand. His fingers are so cold and Phil’s are warm; the sensation is weird, kind of tingly like Phil’s hand had fallen asleep or something.

“Hey, nice to meet you,” Phil says, greeting Seay. He’s friendly enough, but keeps himself a little bit at a distance, and Phil remembers that Seay is a left-hander whose job security was made a little less secure when Phil came over from New York.

They’re in the thick of it, a line of fans stretching far as Phil’s eyes can see, when Scherzer leans over, shoulder nudging gently into Phil’s, and says out of the corner of his mouth, “Kinda reminds me of cattle.”

“Chattel?” Phil asks, remembering their conversation shortly after the trade.

“Nah, cattle,” Scherzer says. “Look at the barricades and stuff. They look like cattle on their way to the slaughterhouse.”

“That’s a lovely thought,” Phil says, unable to help a laugh.

Scherzer’s shoulder is still pressing lightly into Phil’s, and he can feel it when Scherzer laughs too.

Suddenly, it’s not so cold in this place anymore.

-

“I think I have a crush,” Phil tells his agent on the way back to their hotel. Phil and his agent had gone to nearby Dearborn to have lunch at a fancy Middle Eastern place called Al-Ajami.

His agent is yakking away on his earpiece with another client, a mile a minute. He casts Phil a worrying glance, says, “Gimme a sec, Carl. I’ll get right back to you,” and plucks out the ear bud. “What was that?”

Phil leans his head against the cool window, watches as the snow-covered trees whip by in one long blur. “I think I have a crush on somebody.”

“I’m your agent, Phil, not your therapist,” he says, fondly.

“I know. It’s just-- who else am I gonna tell, you know?” Phil shrugs and fiddles with the car door’s locking mechanism. The repetitive motion makes him feel calmer, less nervous. “It’s-- maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this after all.”

“It’s okay. This conversation won’t leave this car,” his agent promises.

Phil knows he should know better than to trust anyone with this, least of all himself, but whatever. His agent can be trusted. And it’s not like anything will ever come of it anyways. He’s still vague with the pronouns, even though he’s sure the decided lack of _she_ s and _her_ s will probably tip him off anyways.

“I met this person a little while ago. Like, not face to face. We met over the phone. And, like, I really enjoyed talking to them. And then I finally met them face to face and it was, like, we-- ” Phil wavers; he doesn’t quite have the vocabulary to describe it, though he’s fairly certain Scherzer does.

“Them?” his agent asks, arching a single dark eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Phil says, “them.”

His agent falls silent. After a few minutes, he sighs, shifts seamlessly into second gear. “Look, Phil, I’m not gonna tell you who to fuck. Or date, or whatever. It’s not part of my job description.”

“But?” Phil prompts.

“But nothing,” his agent says. “If it makes you happy, go for it. Just-- just keep your head on straight about it, okay?”

“How do you mean?” Phil asks, sitting up ramrod straight.

“I mean, keep it quiet, you know?” His agent shrugs. “ ’s not like I’ve never had gay clients before. They’re just careful, is all. Wouldn’t want you to get burned.”

“I know,” Phil sighs. His chest suddenly feels heavy, weighted down with a ballast. He decides it’s not a bad thing, though.

A crooked street sign looms not too far ahead, bearing the words “Welcome to Detroit” on its façade. **WE HOPE YOU SURVIVE** is spray painted sloppily under it in thick, black lettering.

Phil starts to laugh. “Fuck. I sure hope so.”

-

Phil sells his apartment in New York a couple weeks later to a nice couple with a ball of fluff dog named Pixie. He has a feeling they’re going to take good care of the place and he feels all right about that, that Mr. and Mrs. Nice are going to treat his apartment right and he’s finally done with the chapter in his life titled “New York.”

He calls Scherzer up when he gets back into Detroit. Scherzer is smart, hanging out at his offseason home in Arizona until the last possible minute.

“Hey, it’s Phil,” he says, pausing briefly before adding, “Phil Coke,” like Scherzer might have forgotten.

“Hey, Phil Coke,” Scherzer says, a laugh in his tone. “What’s up?”

“Looking for a place in Detroit-- well, more like Birmingham. I didn’t know it was so nice down here,” he says, as he navigates his rental car through downtown Birmingham’s shopping district. “You just hear the horror stories about Detroit, but nobody really talks about all the stores and boutiques and restaurants and stuff.”

Scherzer laughs outright. “Man, I wish I was there.”

“How come?” Phil asks.

“Just to see the look on your face. You’re probably like a kid in a candy store, huh?”

Christmas lights are still strung up around some of the trees and some lamp posts, and everything feels very ethereal and otherworldly. It takes Phil’s breath away. He didn’t know a place like Birmingham, Michigan could be almost as beautiful as New York.

“Yeah,” Phil agrees, kind of breathlessly, “a little bit.”

Scherzer chuffs lightly. “I’m coming to Lakeland straight from Arizona,” he says, sounding almost regretful. “I guess I’ll see you then.”

“You should come up here,” Phil blurts, before he can really think about it. He has a feeling that his agent would be disappointed in him. He can almost picture the guy shaking his head at Phil, clucking his tongue in disapproval.

“Up to _Michigan_? _Now_? But it’s cold,” Scherzer complains.

“Arizona’s ruined you,” Phil says, like he knew Scherzer before the arid Phoenix climate got to him. Like he even knows Scherzer to begin with. “Seriously, man. Come up here.”

“Aw, come on, man,” Scherzer says.

“All right,” Phil says, trying not to sound too disappointed. “I won’t twist your arm over it.” He doesn’t add, _And my agent will probably fire me when he hears I invited you up here anyways, so. Whatever,_ even though it’s on the tip of his tongue to say.

Scherzer is quiet for a few seconds that seem more like minutes, stretched impossibly long. Finally, he says, “We should do this more often.”

“Do what?” Phil asks, caught off guard.

“Talk. Like, on the phone,” Scherzer says. “I like you. You’re a funny guy.”

“I get that a lot,” Phil says.

“When are you reporting to Lakeland?” Scherzer asks.

“I’m gonna come in early,” Phil says. “I wanna make a good impression on the coaches.”

“Then I’ll come in early too,” Scherzer says. Phil can practically hear the smile on his face. “We can totally hang out. We’re gonna own that city by the time Spring Training’s over.”

Phil smiles broadly. “Sounds good to me.”

-

Phil’s down in Lakeland by mid-January and he still isn’t the first guy at camp. Turns out Verlander’s been down there since Thanksgiving, because he lives in the area and the facility is just a five-minute drive from the place he shares with his fiancée.

Verlander’s a nice guy, but Phil isn’t sure what to think of him. He can’t help but feel like Verlander’s blustery cool guy act is just that, an act. Then again, Phil’s never really been great at reading people. He learned that lesson the hard way in the minors when he flirted with the wrong guy at a nightclub in Charleston, South Carolina and got his ass kicked for his trouble.

That was one time where being anonymous had actually worked to his benefit. If the guy had recognized him as a local minor league ballplayer, his career might’ve been over before it even began.

“So, tell me the truth. Does CC Sabathia wear a manziere?” Verlander asks, while he and Phil are in the weight room.

Phil looks over at Verlander, who’s draped over a curl machine, and furrows his brow. “I don’t know. And I don’t really want to.”

Verlander laughs. “I bet his tits’re bigger than his wife’s.”

Phil thinks about Amber Sabathia, and shakes his head. “Nah. She’s pretty stacked.” He hopes he sounds straight enough.

“Man,” Verlander whines, still draped over the curl machine, “I can’t understand how a big fat slob like Sabathia ever got a hot chick like that.”

“Dude,” Phil says, settling on a set of Bowflex dumbbells. “Anyone’ll fuck you if you fall in the upper percentile.”

“Percentile,” Verlander says, wrinkling his nose. “What’s with the big SAT words?”

“Percentile isn’t a big word,” Phil says. “Now, moribund, that’s a big word. And, no, I don’t know what it means. Just think it sounds kinda cool.”

Verlander rolls his eyes and untangles himself from the curl machine. “Okay, man, go be a word geek or whatever. I’m gonna go be a baseball player.” He saunters out of the weight room.

Phil drags in a long breath and holds it before letting it go.

-

He and Scherzer end up renting a small apartment together in Lakeland. It’s not something they have to do, that the team requires of them, but they both like the idea of having somebody else around. Phil wonders if maybe this arrangement will end up being problematic for him, all things considered, but he’s been able to hide his not-straight-ness for practically as long as he can remember. He can hide it for one month.

When Phil gets to the tiny apartment they’ll be sharing for a month, however, he starts to seriously regret his life decisions.

The apartment is practically a one-bedroom with a white dividing line made out of masking tape to differentiate between Phil’s side and Scherzer’s side. Phil can see that Scherzer’s stuff has already started to creep across the line, too.

“Hey, Max,” Phil calls out. “Did you know we were practically gonna live in each other’s laps?”

“It’s not so bad,” Scherzer calls out from the kitchenette. He emerges with a couple chilled beers and a bag of pretzels tucked under one arm. “I got us a privacy screen. You know, just in case.” He nods to the black mesh screen that’s propped up against the wall.

Phil accepts the beer from Scherzer and opens it. “Just in case?”

Scherzer winks at him over his can of beer. “Just in case you need some _privacy_.” He plops down on the fold out couch and turns on the TV. “Hope you don’t mind. I brought a few things.”

“Nah, I don’t mind at all,” Phil says, sitting down on the couch, keeping a respectable distance between them. He sips his beer. “So, what d’you do for fun in Lakeland, anyways?”

“You leave Lakeland and go to Ybor City,” Scherzer replies.

“Ybor City, huh?” Phil laughs. “Sounds like something out of Star Wars.”

“You never hung out in Ybor City when you were playing with the Tampa Yankees?” Scherzer asks, sounding surprised.

Phil shakes his head at his can of beer. “Nah, not really.” He wants to tell Scherzer that he didn’t go to Ybor City proper, that he spent most of his time in the place that eventually became known as GaYbor. He thinks better of it and keeps it to himself, though.

“Man. What’d you do for fun?” Scherzer props his feet up on the coffee table he’d brought with him.

“I hung out with teammates. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t do _anything_. I’m just-- I’m just a small-town kinda guy, you know? Glitz and glamor just aren’t for me.”

Scherzer nods, takes a long pull of his Budweiser. “Yeah, me neither,” he says, slinging an arm over the back of the lumpy couch.

Phil is suddenly very aware of Scherzer’s arm and its close-- way too close-- proximity to his body. He leans away a little bit, into the armrest. “It was kind of hard for me to adjust to New York too. I might’ve just been a dime-a-dozen LOOGY, but the fans in New York, man. Fucking intense.”

Scherzer nods. “I think Detroit’ll strike a healthy balance between the two. The fans and the media will care about how you play, what you do, but they won’t completely, you know, eviscerate you if a hair’s out of place.”

“The New York media isn’t _that_ bad,” Phil says, laughing.

Scherzer laughs too and sets his beer on the coffee table. “I guess you’d know,” he says, agreeably.

“Maybe not as good as A-Rod or Jeter, but yeah.”

Scherzer shifts slightly beside him and Phil turns his head at the movement. They lock gazes and Phil notices for the first time that Scherzer’s eyes are two different colors. It isn’t until Scherzer coughs and cuts his gaze away, slightly awkwardly, that Phil realizes he was staring.

“Sorry,” Phil says, “I never saw anybody with-- with-- ” He flaps his hand unhelpfully, the name for Scherzer’s condition momentarily escaping him.

“Heterochromia,” Scherzer says, glancing back at Phil, slight smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“That’s neat,” Phil says, feeling dumb, especially compared to Scherzer, who can throw out big words like it’s going out of style.

“I used to hate it, being different,” Scherzer admits, sounding almost sheepish, as he sips at his beer. “The other kids teased me mercilessly. But it’s not so bad now. I’m kinda proud of it, I guess.”

“It makes you-- unique,” Phil says, still feeling dumb. He also feels a tiny ache in his chest, and he’s not really sure why. “Special. I wish I was that special.”

Scherzer shifts again and Phil wonders if he said the wrong thing. “We’re both special. We’re playing pro baseball for a living.” Scherzer smiles and finishes off the last of his Budweiser. He glances at Phil. “You don’t think you are?”

Phil shrugs. “I try not to get a big head about it,” he says. “I mean, I wasn’t a first rounder or anything. I had to work a second job until a couple years ago just to make ends meet.”

Scherzer sits back and folds his hands under his head. “Thinking you’re special ’cause you can do stuff other people can’t doesn’t mean you have a big head. Just means you have pride.”

“Isn’t pride a sin though?” Phil asks. He hadn’t been a very good Christian the last few years. And he’s sure that if pride _is_ a sin, it’s not the one that’s going to land him on God’s shit list.

Scherzer shrugs. “I think they just say it’s a sin ’cause it’s fun.”

Phil laughs. “Everything that’s fun’s a sin, I think.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” Scherzer grins.

Phil sits back and settles in, feeling relaxed and comfortable. “Yeah.”

“So,” Scherzer says, “tell me a little about yourself.”

“Like what?” Phil asks, feeling vaguely confused, like he missed something vital somewhere.

“Like, I dunno. Whatever,” Scherzer says, with a shrug. “We’re gonna be living together for a month. Might as well get to know each other.”

Phil steals a glance at him before looking back at the TV. “I’m from California,” he says. “Sonora, three hours outside San Francisco.”

“Huh, that must be nice,” Scherzer says.

“I guess. Sonora’s kinda small. Everybody knows everybody,” Phil says. _Everybody also knows everybody’s business,_ he doesn’t add.

“Hm.” Scherzer motions for Phil to continue on.

“I dunno what you want me to say,” Phil says, squirming a bit. “Way to put me on the spot, man.”

“I don’t really know what I want you to say either,” Scherzer says, a slight grumble to his tone. “I just wanna-- know more about you, I guess. You can turn it around on me when you’re done, promise.”

Phil sighs. “All right, well. My dad worked in Soledad, in the prison, and my mom’s a homemaker. I’ve got two brothers. I’ve got A.D.D. And I used to be a chimney sweeper.”

“A chimney sweeper?” Scherzer doesn’t look bored anymore. He puts a hand on Phil’s shoulder. “Like, as in _Mary Poppins_? That kind of chimney sweeper? With the broom and everything?”

“It’s not so much a broom as it is a brush,” Phil says.

“Wow,” Scherzer says. “That’s actually kinda cool.”

“I guess,” Phil allows, shrugging slightly. “It’s not a fun job. It’s actually kinda dangerous. I’m definitely glad I don’t have to do _that_ anymore.”

Scherzer folds up on one of the couch cushions. “The only job I ever had, besides baseball of course, was as a barista at Starbucks. For, like, a week. I got fired.”

“How come?” Phil asks, leaning toward Scherzer in spite of himself.

Scherzer grins, sounding almost proud. “I blew up the espresso machine.”

Phil shakes his head, smiling. “How’d you manage that?”

“I plugged too much shit into the outlet and it short-circuited.” Scherzer shrugs. “Clearly, I was meant for bigger and better things.”

“Clearly,” Phil agrees, with a smile.

-

Phil accidentally comes out to Scherzer a couple weeks later over a game of Scrabble and way too many beers.

It definitely isn’t something he had planned. If he’d been in his right mind, he wouldn’t have said anything to begin with. And he thinks it’s kind of unfair that this is the one time he remembers what he said while he was drunk.

They’re halfheartedly playing a game of Scrabble and Scherzer is utterly humiliating him, but Phil doesn’t mind. He’s drunk and something warm is buzzing through his veins. Probably alcohol, considering how much he’s had. But maybe not, maybe it’s something else.

“Syzygy,” Phil slurs, butchering the pronunciation, “is _so_ not a word.”

“It is _so_ a word! It comes from the Greek syzygos, which means ‘to yoke together,’ ” Scherzer says, as he finishes putting the tiles in place. “Twenty-seven points. All right!”

Phil drops his head into his hands. “I hate you. I haaaate you.”

“You love me,” Scherzer jokes. “Your turn.”

“I do,” Phil agrees.

“You do what?” Scherzer taps his pen impatiently against the table while he waits for Phil to make his move.

“Love you,” Phil says quite seriously, dropping his hands from his face to examine his tiles. _Kpibobo. That’s totally a word._ Phil sets the pieces in place on the board.

“Kpibobo isn’t a word,” Scherzer says, but his voice is very still, quiet. It makes Phil nervous.

Phil’s heart immediately begins pounding in his chest. “It’s as much a word as fuckin’ _syzygy_ is,” he complains. His fingers are tingly too. Maybe it’s a heart attack. Phil really hopes it is. Anything to get out of the mess he’s just made for himself.

“So,” Scherzer says, gently pushing Phil’s tiles off the board. “You love me?”

“No, noooo,” Phil groans, pressing his face into his hands for a second time.

“You’re really drunk,” Scherzer says.

Phil nods way too hard and his head begins to throb. “I am.”

“Look, maybe we should just talk about this later,” Scherzer says.

“Or _never_ ,” Phil says, way too loudly, into his hands and it comes out muffled.

Scherzer looks at him with an expression of-- something on his face. Something that Phil can’t read. “What?”

“ _Never_ ,” Phil says. “Let’s talk about it never.”

“Okay, I don’t think that’s such a hot idea.” Scherzer sighs and knocks _his_ tiles off the board as well. He begins to fold up the Scrabble board and tucks it in its box.

Phil watches Scherzer as he gets up and puts the board game on top of the TV set. “I like talking, just not about this,” Phil says, feeling guilty.

“I get it. It’s okay,” Scherzer says, and he sounds more like himself, but Phil isn’t quite convinced yet.

“I-- I need to take a nap,” Phil says unsteadily, pushing himself to his feet.

“Don’t fall asleep on your back,” Scherzer warns, pointing at him.

“What? Why?”

“You could vomit in your sleep, and then choke on it and die,” Scherzer says.

“Unlikely. But if it makes you feel better, I’ll try to fall asleep on my stomach.” Phil salutes him and staggers off to his waiting bed.

He collapses onto it and, almost immediately, he’s out.

-

When Phil emerges from his side of the divider, blearily rubbing the grit from his eyes, he finds Scherzer in the kitchenette, making both of them dinner.

“You don’t have to,” Phil mumbles, dry-mouthed. He smacks his lips and heads over to the fridge for a soda.

“We’d both die of food poisoning if _you_ cooked so, yes, I have to,” Scherzer says, scraping chopped-up onion off a cutting board and into a frying pan on the stove.

Phil finds a bottle of Excedrin in the cupboard over the sink and downs a couple pills, chasing them with a swig of stale Coke Zero. _There’s some irony in that,_ he thinks.

Phil lowers the can of soda. “You, uh, still wanna talk?”

Scherzer steps away from the stove and glances at Phil. He shrugs. “Only if you want to.”

“I owe you, so,” Phil says.

“You shouldn’t talk to me because you feel like you owe me one,” Scherzer says, sounding indulgent, almost like a parent.

Phil puts the can of Coke aside and crosses his arms over his chest. He leans back against the sink, bumps into it with his hip. “I’ve kinda got a thing for you.”

Scherzer wipes his hands off on his jeans. “A thing?”

“Like, I dunno. I think about you a lot,” Phil says, feeling lame. He wishes he had a way to show Scherzer how he feels that didn’t involve him grabbing him and kissing him, or, like, speaking at all because he has no fucking clue what to tell him. “When you walk into a room, my chest gets all tight. Like I can’t breathe. But it’s-- it’s-- I don’t know. I wish I could tell you and just have you understand.”

Scherzer’s expression is unreadable and his eyes are guarded, and Phil can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. “I see.”

“I know you’re not like that,” Phil says, breathlessly, in a rush. “I-- I can tell. And I’d never, you know, do anything that would make you feel uncomfortable.”

“I know you wouldn’t do that,” Scherzer says, quiet, face still carefully blank and neutral.

“Max, I’m gay.” Phil wants to find the nearest smooth, firm surface and bang his head against it for a while. Of course Scherzer knows he’s fucking gay.

Scherzer cracks a slight smile for the first time all day. “No shit.”

Phil starts to laugh and Scherzer does too, a little. “I really just-- ” Phil reaches out without really thinking, touches the back of Scherzer’s hand, and he flinches away slightly. Phil pulls his hand back, feeling like he’s been kicked in the stomach. “Sorry.”

Scherzer looks guilty at that and grabs Phil’s hand abruptly. “No, it’s just-- Did I make this worse for you? By being around?”

“No! It’s not your fault. It’s me,” Phil says, glancing down at their hands.

Scherzer sighs deeply. “I’m sorry, Phil,” he says.

“It’s okay,” Phil says. He doesn’t know if it really _is_ okay, but he wants it to be. If not for his sake, then for Scherzer’s.

“No, I _am_ ,” Scherzer says, still keeping hold of Phil’s hand. “I’m sorry I can’t be what you want.”

Phil raises his head and smiles. “No, don’t be. I want _this_ ,” he says. “What we are.”

Scherzer looks slightly puzzled. “What are we?”

“We’re-- we’re us,” Phil says, flailing internally. “The other stuff’ll go away, eventually. I just have to-- have to work at it, I guess.”

Scherzer slips his hand out of Phil’s and pulls him into a hug. He smells like wet onions, and Phil closes his eyes and breathes in deeply, resting his hands low on Scherzer’s back.

They finally break the hug when the smoke detector goes off. The food has been ruined, but neither really minds.

-

“So, how long have you known you’re gay?” Scherzer asks, scooping up lo mein with his chopsticks.

“Ever since I can remember,” Phil says, as he pokes at jiggling cubes of tofu with mild disgust.

“Really?” Scherzer asks.

“Well, I guess I didn’t really know what the concept of ‘gay’ was when I was, like, six but I knew I was different,” Phil says, with a shrug. He pops one of the tofu cubes into his mouth and tries not to gag. He chases it down with a slug of beer.

“Hm,” Scherzer says, sounding thoughtful.

“Pass me the lo mein,” Phil says, clacking his chopsticks at Scherzer impatiently.

Scherzer hands the carton over with a good-natured grumble. “Do your parents know?”

“Oh God,” Phil says, laughing, dumping some of the lo mein on his plate, “no. Never.”

“You’re never going to tell them?” Scherzer looks surprised.

“My dad would never stand for it,” Phil says, spearing a chunk of meat with one of his chopsticks. “He’s always been against it. Mostly ’cause he used to work in the prison system, and he just associates gayness with that.”

“Didn’t he wonder, though?” Scherzer snags the carton of lo mein out of Phil’s hand and takes some for himself.

“I didn’t let him wonder,” Phil says. “I had a lot of girlfriends in high school. Once I started college, it was a little easier to be myself. Kinda wish I’d been smart enough to get into university though. Imagine all the fun I missed out on ’cause I stayed home and went the JuCo route.”

Scherzer chuckles. “You could always go back once you’re done playing.”

“But then I’ll be, like, this creepy old guy macking on all the hot young dudes. I don’t want to be that guy,” Phil says, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, I’d kinda lose some respect for you then,” Scherzer says, laughing.

Phil puts on a solemn expression. “We can’t have that.”

“Not at all.” Scherzer beams.

Phil looks down at his plate and then at Scherzer. There’s no easy way to bring this up, so he just goes for it. “I’m thinking maybe I should move out for the last couple weeks of Spring Training.”

Scherzer blinks in surprise. Or confusion. But most likely, both. “Why?”

“I need to start on the whole ‘getting over it’ thing,” Phil admits.

“It’ll be easier for you if you’re not around me?” Scherzer asks.

“Like, just so that I’m not around you _all_ the time. Not seeing you all the time. I have to unlearn this and it’ll be easier if I move out.”

Scherzer nods slowly, and mostly addresses his lo mein. “I understand. You gotta do what you gotta do.” He eats a little bit of his dinner. “I can help you pack.”

“You don’t have to-- ” Phil begins, but Scherzer cuts him off.

“It’s kind of my fault you’re moving out, so, yeah. Shut up and deal.”

Phil laughs. “Yes, sir.”

-

Phil’s packing all his shit into a cardboard box to take over to his new apartment-- one of their teammates, Zach Miner, has an extra room in the place he’s renting and offers to put Phil up-- when Phil drops a snow globe on his foot.

“Ow. Fuck.”

Scherzer has been keeping a respectful amount of distance since Phil told him about his stupid feelings. Phil almost kind of wishes he hadn’t told him everything, but what can you do?

Phil wonders if maybe he _wanted_ to tell Scherzer, because he knows he could have lied or blown it off, or something, if he had really wanted to.

Scherzer peers around the divider. “You all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I think I busted my big toe though.” Phil stoops down and picks up his mom’s snow globe, shakes it. “Fucking snow globe.” He drops it unceremoniously in his cardboard box and hobbles over to Scherzer’s side.

Scherzer drapes his arm behind Phil’s shoulders and shoves his hand into his pocket. “ ’s gonna be kinda weird without you,” Scherzer says. “What’s Miner think?”

“About what?” Phil asks, allowing himself to lean into the contact, just this once, this one last time.

“ ’bout you moving out of here and into his place. Does he think we had a fight or something?” Scherzer asks.

“Nah,” Phil says, shrugging. “Just told him our living arrangement wasn’t really working out, and he totally understood.”

Scherzer slips his arm from around Phil’s shoulders and tucks his other hand into his pocket. “Well, I hope it works out for you,” he says, sounding uncharacteristically awkward and unsure of himself. He rocks back on his heels. “I hope-- I hope you find what you’re looking for. And I hope we can stay friends.”

Phil looks at him and Scherzer looks back. He rests his hand on Scherzer’s shoulder and smiles, fond. “It will. _We_ will. I’ll make sure of that.” Phil heads over to the bed and picks up his box. He pauses by the doorway and looks back over at Scherzer. “I’ll call you when I get settled in.”

“Maybe we can hang out or something before we have to go to Kansas City,” Scherzer says. “I can show you my old stomping grounds.”

Phil smiles. “Sounds like a plan. See you around, Max.”

Scherzer taps the top of Phil’s cardboard box with his knuckles. “See you, Phil.”

Phil slips past him and walks out of the apartment. He feels good about this decision, this separation. It almost kind of feels like a trial separation, the kind couples have to see if they can work out all their problems and find their way back to each other. It’s kind of true for him and Scherzer too.

A heavy feeling, something a lot like determination, settles low in Phil’s chest.

He is going to work out his problems and then he will come back, and it will be better than before. There won’t be this imbalance between them, Phil pining miserably from afar and Scherzer helpless and unable to do anything about it. It will be equal, balanced.

Phil tosses his box into the back of his pickup and pulls the plastic bed cover down over it. A gust of brisk air blows against his cheeks and water stings the corners of his eyes.

Phil hops in, starts the engine, and pulls out of his spot. Turns his truck toward the exit sign and eases his foot on the gas. He pulls a plastic case out of his glove box-- Metallica’s _ReLoad_ , like it would be anything else-- and pops the disk into his CD player. “Fuel” starts blasting from the speakers and Phil rolls the windows down, feels the wind whipping in his hair, tilts his face up into it.

James Hetfield belts out, “Gimme fuel, gimme fire, gimme that which I desire,” and Phil warbles along, banging his hand on the steering column happily.

He feels free, untethered.

This is going to be his best season yet.

**Author's Note:**

> The author of this piece intends no insult, slander, or copyright infringement, and is not profiting from this work. This story is a complete work of fiction and does not necessarily reflect on the nature of the individuals featured. This is for entertainment purposes only. If you found this story while Googling your name or the names of your friends, hit the back button now.


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